For those unfamiliar, GrapheneOS is a privacy and security enhanced custom ROM endorsed by Snowden. Despite these big names, plenty of people give it backlash
Even @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml gives it backlash despite being a moderator of Lemmy’s biggest privacy community. A quote here: “grapheneOS trolls are downvoting every single post and comment of mine, and committing vote manipulation on Lemmy. They are using 5-6 accounts.” That was in response to downvotes on a comment posted in the c/WorldNews community, which is entirely unrelated to technology.
One of the reasons is that GrapheneOS can only be installed on Google Pixels due to security compatibility, which makes complete sense considering Android should be most compatible with Google’s own devices. GrapheneOS even lists the exact reasons they chose Pixels, and encourage people to step up and manufacture a different supported device.
One year ago, Louis Rossmann posted this video outlining his reasons for deleting GrapheneOS. Mainly, he had multiple bad experiences with Daniel Micay (the founder and main developer of GrapheneOS) which put his distrust in the GrapheneOS project. Since then, he has stepped down and will no longer be actively contributing to the project.
So, I am here to learn why exactly people still do not like GrapheneOS.
I have been a member of the graphene os matrix room for some months, hoping to someday get a pixel and switch to it. I am a software advisor and have recommended GOS to a lot of my students. I have just posted a link of this lemmy thread to the matrix room, with no special intention but to share and talk about this. It took 3 mins or so for them to delete the message and ban me. So, this totally and radically confirms for me that Graphene OS staff is not a nice one, and that they obviously fear something, being incapable of talking openly, so I wouldn’t trust them. Thanks for the heads up.
The admin of the matrix room contacted me afterwards. They feel harassed by threads like this and also feels that this thread is having positive comments towards GrapheneOS censored and only negative comments kept.